Tag: curve

Duelyst opens with some fairly standard tutorials

. These tutorials seemingly make you feel prepared for the game, but it’s far from the truth.

That’s not to say they are bad. Just that other people are really good. I mean, really really good. You will go through the tutorials at the speed of lightning. They teach you the basics of tactical board games if you’ve never played one before (a good thing! it would definitely be hopeless without it).

Before we discuss those, I want to talk about “unboxing Duelyst” assuming this is your first time ever playing:

Immediately, I went to the settings and adjusted all the user interface settings I could to make the game easier for me.

I also turned off the music (no offence Counterplay – I have Spotify Premium) I want the game to feed me as much information as possible while I play. I want to adapt and be aware of situations during the game, not after.

Then, I installed some scripts to even further improve that user interface. I found these scripts on the duelyst subreddit. They were made by a lovely individual by the name of T2k5. I found him on the Duelyst Official Discord and annoyed him to figure out how to get my screen looking fresh, clean, crisp, and slick while still showing me a lot of data that will improve my play and help me learn the fundamentals of the game. Things like an in-game deck list (which I haven’t figured out yet), a turn-timer, a movement speed increase, and graphical enhancements – the scripts T2K5 makes are an awesome addition to the game. Get them.

Did I mention Discord? I got on the discord – a group instant messaging program full of Duelyst players who can help you out and make you feel like you have a lot of super smart, cool friends if you need that kind of boost like I do.

Hopped into the tutorials

A slightly modified first look

However, the tutorials are far from what the gameplay is actually like. In the real game the generals have a whopping 25hp. Not 3, Not 4, Not 10, for example.

Your mana increases per turn, you don’t start with 9. Your cards are a little more random. The manatiles, oh the mana tiles! It doesn’t get any easier from here.

Yeah, that only happens for the opponent.

BUT – All things considered, it’s a start. It’s important to learn the fundamentals, and this is what Duelyst For Dummies by (me) A Dummy is about. So take your time. Go slow, read instructions, win and learn to win, because…

Duelyst has no single player mode. If you want to play Duelyst, unless you have a strange set of motivating factors for playing competitive multiplayer games, you probably want to win sometimes to have fun. Winning isn’t the only thing, but it definitely makes up for losing.

What did I do next? I proceeded to look at all the cards in “collection” after unlocking each faction in a practice match by following the recommended 1v1 battles with the bot. Why did I look at the cards I had collected?

I wanted to look at the cards and try to assign overarching rules to each faction, to come up with an understanding of their strengths and how they win. I realized that was overwhelming, so I took a look at neutral cards with abilities that seemed easy to understand or had no abilities at all. I looked at the Generals available to me and I chose Argeon, as I felt his buff (bloodborne spell) was fairly straight forward and easy to use.

Then, I built a deck using these concepts.
I read online that mathematically you should have nine minions that can be played (dropped) in the first turn, whether you are player one or player two. This has to do with something called mana. We’re not going to get into the concept of player one and player two mana differences just yet – but be aware they exist.

Furthermore, I read that to limit the randomness of card games, you should put the maximum copy of cards you wish to see at least once in the game in your deck (it’s three). Again, this is mathematical data that is ignorant to ignore. There are special cases, but we wont talk about them just yet.

Implementing this concept of nine minions that cost two mana (minions and spells require mana to be played – mana is your money), and the fact that your mana(money) goes up by 1 each turn, I tried to create a very simple to understand deck with an appropriate amount of cards of each cost of mana attempting to predict my curve.

Here is the deck I came up with. I chose not to copy a deck off the internet (netdecking) because I didn’t want win games, and I wanted to learn how to win games and keep winning when I hit sticking points by learning how to play the game, not the cards. The spells are the spells I had access to, note there are no neutral spells:

Provoke, Ranged, Flying. These keywords seemed self-explanatory. Zeal? Opening Gambit? Dying Wish? I mean I can figure them out, but not just yet. I’m still a toddler.

So what did I do next? I queued up a season game to win a quest for some gold (used to buy card packs), expecting to lose with my seriously handicapped deck – Remember, I have some amateur experience in the game.

The end result of my first game? I won.

How did this happen? Well, I probably won because I have played the game before.

But the point here is that I either had a better deck than the other player, better in-game decisions, or better luck.

My deck is the basic cards and not faction specific so it’s hard to imagine the first to be correct.

Possible, I have previous experience.

While possible? I consider it unlikely.

Why is this important? This is important because it demonstrates that spending time to learn the fundamentals will help you become a winning player so you can enjoy the competitive nature of the game.

Oh and, by the way? I got obliterated my second game.

PS: I tried streaming, but my laptop is WAY too terrible. I’m broke – Sorry to those who witnessed it. It will have to happen in the future.

Summary:

The Duelyst tutorial is a little bit off-center from the reality of the game but very good for someone who has never played a turn based strategy game before.

Mana = Money

There is math that smart people discovered that you should care about with regards to how you should make your deck – specifically to be “cost-efficient” on a “curve”. Listen to them – most notably about minions that cost 2 mana.

You can win without having flashy cards. Build a deck by selecting cards that seem appropriate with attention to the curve and the likeliness that they will see play.